Wrestling Tournament #4 for 2019: Super Silver Lake

This was our 4th tournament for the season and another new to us tournament.  I had heard good and bad things, and i was hoping for the good.  Here is how our day went and spoiler alert, it wasn't great.

First thing, we got there an hour before the tournament even started and the place was already completely full.  We even had to park at another school and walk a few blocks.  One of the wrestling moms had saved some space at the very top of the bleachers, but we decided it would be better to be outside the gym since the gym was SO small and SO packed (and HOT).

Second, Andrew's bracket only had three kids.  That meant 2 matches.  This made no sense when there were 3 other 64 pounders in the other 64 6U bracket.  Why not have 6 kids in a bracket and do a round robin?  I would rather my son wrestle multiple times and not get a medal, versus 2 times with a guaranteed medal.  Of the entire wrestling team there (and I filled out the bout sheets so I know) he had the least amount of mat time.

Third, there was little to no room for the wrestlers to get ready/warm up/focus.  The edge of the mat was at best 5 feet from the edge of the tables and that was also how people got back and forth from all the mats that seemed crammed into the gym space. I think I counted 7 if not more mat spaces marked off in the tiny gym, which meant mass chaos.  Plus, people had put their stuff in that space that people were trying to walk/warm up in and I think that should NOT be allowed.  If people needed to exit that walk space quickly, that would be a huge tripping hazard. Don't let the photo below fool you.  Just to get to the mat for Andrew to wrestle, we had to push our way to the mat. 

this is blurry but this is andrew doing some jumps with daddy

Okay, those are my gripes.  Our goal was to try hard and warm up well.  He has gone into most of his matches kind of flat and we wanted him pumped and fired up.  Kind of hard to do, but we tried and I think it worked.  Yes he lost, but he never stopped trying like he has in the past.

Prior to his match, we had him review all the moves.  He could recite and execute most if not all of them, so we were pretty excited.  I love the fact that he jumped the whistle twice, as we have been working on him being ready to pounce.  While I would have liked to have seen this match go longer (and it looked like from our angle he wasn't pinned but again the ref has the best angle), we were still happy that he was trying to move and trying to get up.  Bridging would have been the better move, but he was still moving the entire time.  

We didn't have much time to wait before the next match.  Andrew very quickly got ready and got out there to find he didn't have an opponent.  As they were calling for his opponent, the kiddo came running out on the mat, crying hysterically and clutching his tummy.

The ref called the coach over quickly after talking to kiddo, and between the parent and the coach they decided it wasn't worth him wrestling. He is a really good kid, so I have no doubt he was really not feeling well.  The ref really confused Andrew because he made a HUGE deal about Andrew winning and then Andrew was so confused as to why were weren't as excited as he was.  

We don't wish that our kiddo needs win every match, but we want him to have the experience of wrestling.  Only have two matches isn't great, only have one kind of sucks.

  

We got to leave super early, so there was that.  We have two more tournaments before the end of the season and I am SO happy with the improvements we have seen.  He did an amazing job warming up today, so I can't wait to be in a better more spacious gym where we can see how that plays out. Onward and upwards!